DUO
“ Fantastic, bravo! I can see your deep musical work! “
Cuban conductor and composer (Grammy winner 2017), Leo Brouwer to the Lux Nova Duo
The Hamburg Award-winning Lux Nova Duo is formed by the peruvian guitarist Jorge Paz Verastegui and german accordionist Lydia Schmidl. Created in 2012 in inspiring Barcelona, the duo sheds new light on the unusual combination of instruments.The Lux Nova Duo has performed in major concert halls in Europe and South America such as the Elbphilharmonie, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Glocke Bremen, the Laeiszhalle, the Sendesaal Bremen, the National Theatre of Costa Rica, the National Theatre of Peru, the Resonanzraum Hamburg, the ZKM Karlsruhe, the Auditorium Enrique Granados Lleida (Spain) and the Auditorium Girona (Spain). They have been invited to international festivals such as the Festival Klub Katarakt at Kampnagel, the Brandenburg Summer Concerts, the Hamburg Guitar Festival, the Hamburg Guitar Days, the Festival Josep Soler Barcelona, the Villa Sottocasa Bergamo (Italy) and the Forum Neue Musik Hamburg.
In addition, the creation of a new composition – the world premiere – is a special moment for the two musicians. Until now, more than 35 compositions have been dedicated to this innovative instrumentation. The duo works with composers from all over the world. Among them, they worked with the fantastic composer Leo Brouwer, who is considered one of the most important composers in South America and received Grammy in 2017. Another two awarded composers who worked with the duo are the argentinian Mario M. Mary. who wrote for them Misteriosa persistencia, and Jose Maria Sanchez Verdu who composed the espectral Lux Negra. The nigerian-wiss composer Charles Uzor used for “Sephardic Lilt”, a sephardic melody and a Bach chorale BWV 640 for his composition. The duo plays this piece along with a recording of two microtonal theorbos. At their debut concert at the Elbphilharmonie, they played a world premiere by the famous Peruvian composer Alejandro Nuñez Allauca. He combined European compositional techniques with mystical sounds of the Andes. For the Peruvian guitarist of the duo, it is a great pleasure to perform music from his country of origin.
In October 2020 they played the world premiere of the “Variaciones concertantes despues de Beethoven”. This concerto for guitar, accodion and string orquestra was writen dedicated to the duo by Leo Brouwer. The concert was broadcast live from the Sendesaal Bremen on German National Radio (Deutschlandfunk Kultur). Subsequently, the American premiere was streamed from the National Theater of Costa Rica with the Orchestra de Heredia (Costa Rica) conducted by Eddie Mora (Grammy Award 2018).
Their current, fifth CD Transcend was released last year. The two musicians recorded concertos for guitar, accordion and orchestra with the renowned Württemberg Orchestra Heilbronn. All works were first recordings and were dedicated to the duo. It includes works by Leo Brouwer, Sascha Lino Lemke, Hector Docx and Eddie Mora, who was also the conductor of the project. The fourth CD Meeting Leo Brouwer is entirely dedicated to the Cuban guitar legend and was created in collaboration with the composer. Previously, Inspiracion Bach was released on the Genuin label. On the second CD Hamburg Dialogues (label Costa Records) the focus is on Hamburg composers. Their first CD Intuiciones with Spanish/Latin American music was released as a first price of the competition the University of the Arts Bremen.
The duo is deeply dedicated to education and to support new talents. They are actively collaborating with young composers and performers by their festival Hamburg Dialogues. It is a contemporary music festival that is now in its fifth edition. They also give master classes and pedagogic concerts arround in Europe and Latin America.The duo has been a guest on national and international radio stations such as Deutschlandfunk, NDR, Spain’s national radio station RTVE, Bremen zwei, as well as contributions to the BBC (England), ORF 1 (Austria) and SRF 2 Kultur (Switzerland).